DESCRIPTION Passwd is used to update a user’s authentication token(s).
Passwd is configured to work through the Linux-PAM API. Essentially, it initializes itself as a "passwd" service with Linux-PAM and utilizes configured password modules to authenticate and then update a user’s password.
A simple entry in the Linux-PAM configuration file for this service would be:
# # passwd service entry that does strength checking of # a proposed password before updating it. # passwd password requisite \ /usr/lib/security/pam_cracklib.so retry=3 passwd password required \ /usr/lib/security/pam_unix.so use_authtok #
Note, other module-types are not required for this application to function correctly.
OPTIONS -k The option, -k, is used to indicate that the update should only be for expired authentication tokens (passwords); the user wishes to keep their non-expired tokens as before.
-l This option is used to lock the specified account and it is available to root only. The locking is per- formed by rendering the encrypted password into an invalid string (by prefixing the encrypted string with an !).
--stdin This option is used to indicate that passwd should read the new password from standard input, which can be a pipe.
Example of reading password from standard input:
Code:
# echo '123456789' | passwd --stdin tuser Changing password for user tuser. passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
Above, user tuser's password was changed to '123456789'.
In Linux it is possible to change a user's password with the ouput of an echo command, coming from standard input, via pipe. [code] NAME passwd - update a user’s authentication tokens(s)
DESCRIPTION Passwd is used to update a user’s authentication token(s).
Passwd is configured to work through the Linux-PAM API. Essentially, it initializes itself as a "passwd" service with Linux-PAM and utilizes configured password modules to authenticate and then update a user’s password.
A simple entry in the Linux-PAM configuration file for this service would be:
# # passwd service entry that does strength checking of # a proposed password before updating it. # passwd password requisite \ /usr/lib/security/pam_cracklib.so retry=3 passwd password required \ /usr/lib/security/pam_unix.so use_authtok #
Note, other module-types are not required for this application to function correctly.
OPTIONS -k The option, -k, is used to indicate that the update should only be for expired authentication tokens (passwords); the user wishes to keep their non-expired tokens as before.
-l This option is used to lock the specified account and it is available to root only. The locking is per- formed by rendering the encrypted password into an invalid string (by prefixing the encrypted string with an !).
--stdin This option is used to indicate that passwd should read the new password from standard input, which can be a pipe. [/code]
[b]Example of reading password from standard input:[/b] [code] # echo '123456789' | passwd --stdin tuser Changing password for user tuser. passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully. [/code] Above, user tuser's password was changed to '123456789'.